Brandon & Julianna Jones

Whitney brought her video camera to the Vulnerable Children's Kid's Club a few weeks ago and filmed part of one of the kid's favorite games. It's a call and response game called "Olele!" You're sure to love it. So cute!

Kid's Club: Olele! from Brandon Jones on Vimeo.

This is what it looks like when a house is being built in Masi
Masi is an interesting place. It's full of shacks built out of scrap metal and insulated with cardboard. But there are also a lot of government-built cinderblock-and-cement houses. One woman I recently met lives inside a building that looks like it used to be a large shop. She rents a tiny room in the back that barely has room for a tiny twin bed and a plastic shelf for food. She's from Zimbabwe but came here on her own to find work. She hasn't really found any, but earns enough money to feed her and her newborn baby by making things out of beads. I asked her if she liked it here, and she said no. She wants to go back to Zimbabwe. But she can't earn enough for the trip back. She said in Zim, people would never live in housing like in Masi. They have mud huts in the rural areas, but even where she lived in Harare the housing was better for everyone. Rachel gave her a picture she'd taken of her and her daughter in their shack, but she said she wouldn't send it back to her family because of the shame of where she was living. The other main housing option in Masi is government homes. The picture at the top of the post is of one of these homes being built. A whole lot are being built right now because the government has this deal where they'll build you one for only 9,000 Rand (about $1,200). This isn't an option for everyone, though, because most people don't own land and/or don't have that much money. But it's more accessible than it has been in the past to have a home, so there's a lot of construction going on in Masi right now.

South Africa has finally arrived in the 21st century — at least in my book. Unlimited Internet was available for the first time this month. And All Nations has joined the massive move of customers to the unlimited option. So we now have unlimited Internet in Africa House! For those of you in America, this might be confusing for you. Remember the old days when you had to pay AOL by the hour? Well, until this month South African Internet was kind of like that. You had to pay for the amount of net that you used. It wasn't based on time, though, it was based on usage. So for things that used a lot of bandwidth — software updates, videos, pictures — you had to pay out of your ears. So I haven't been able to upload many photos or videos onto the Web, or do Skype video chats — until now. Everything has changed! Internet is still slow, but if I'm patient I can upload and download pics and videos as much as I want. So just letting you know to expect more in the way of visual media in the future. Also, I thought I'd post a picture of what the lounge in Africa House looked like just about an hour after Brandon called and ordered us unlimited Internet.
The massive Internet download/upload party in the Africa House lounge the first day we got unlimited Internet.

Brandon and I’s intention is to send an e-mail out weekly regarding our prayer needs. I thought I would post the prayer requests on this blog as well, for those who aren't on that list. If you would like to get these requests in your inbox, just let us know! Personal Prayer Requests: • Health. Please pray that God heals us and keeps both of us healthy! Both Brandon and I’s allergies and other health issues have been flaring up big time. Pray against discouragement as a result of this for me. Pray protection against allergies for Brandon, especially because we are moving into a different house next week that has a cat. (Brandon is very allergic.) • Wisdom. We are the leaders of the Masiphumelele outreach team. The outreach phase of CPx, which lasts eight weeks, begins next week. Pray that we would listen to the Lord’s voice and facilitate His move throughout the outreach. Prayer Requests for Others: • Passports and visas. Teams of CPx students are going all over southern Africa for this outreach phase. One sweet couple from India, Lee and Rashmi, need Home Affairs to approve a visa for them to return to South Africa after their outreach in Namibia (so that they can debrief and finish CPx with the rest of the students). • Government ID. Please pray with me for a young single mother that I have been meeting with in Masi. I met her just as she was questioning and angry with God for all the bad things that have happened to her. But as we prayed and read the Bible with her over the past two months, I’ve watched God put a new hope and joy in her heart. Now she will head to Johannesburg this week with her uncle to try to obtain an official ID from the South African government. Without this ID, she cannot get a job or go to further schooling. She has finished high school and wants to go to college. It is notoriously difficult to acquire an ID without a birth certificate (which she does not have), so please pray that God would provide this for her!
The baby girl of the young Masi woman who needs prayer for an ID. Isn't she precious?

This is an exciting week for Brandon and I. The teaching phase of CPx is complete, and now we are preparing to enter the next phase: outreach. It’s an eight-week time of intensive ministry six days a week. The CPx students have been divided into six teams: Masi, Ocean View, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and another East African country. Brandon and I are staying here in Cape Town to continue working in Masi. We are on a team of six, with Brandon and I as leaders, and filled out with Sbu, Lifa, Pete and Mel. We’re a multi-cultural team from three continents: Brandon and I are from Oklahoma in the U.S., Sbu and Lifa are from South Africa and Pete and Mel are from the U.K. All of us except Pete and Mel have already been ministering in Masi during the first part of CPx.
The Masi team: from left, Pete, Mel, Sbu, Juli, Brandon and Lifa.
Masi is a fantastic place — Sbu likes to call it “Heaven on Earth” — and we are all believing that God is going to do some incredible things there during our outreach. Our plan is to continue meeting with those we’ve begun relationships with so far, but we also have several new focuses for this time. • We’re going to start several six-week classes in Masi. Brandon will be teaching one on budgeting and money management. I will lead a story-writing workshop for young women. • We will work more closely with the Vulnerable Children program to mentor young people in really difficult circumstances. • We will continue to lead the Kid’s Club for Vulnerable Children, hoping to implement some new tools to disciple children every Friday afternoon.
Playing a game outside at the Vulnerable Children Kid's Club
Our living conditions and schedule will change starting Monday to go with our new outreach focus. Brandon and I will move out of our current room and back into Africa House (where we were the first week of CPx). We'll live there with the other members of the Masi team, as well as those CPx students who are staying here to work in Ocean View. Our general schedule will be worship and prayer with the team in the morning, a long lunch time for errands and that sort of thing, and then spend time in Masi noon to five each day. Sunday will be our day off. I’ll continue to update this site with information about our outreach activities. I’m also updating a separate site as well, that you can check out to get more info on each of the CPx outreach teams. Simply go to cpxoutreach.posterous.com to read posts by all the teams during the next two months. (It’s a handy site that Brandon set up for All Nations! In the past, e-mails had to be collected and circulated by someone back in Cape Town, a time-consuming process. Now it's all automatically posted to this central blog. Isn't All Nations blessed to have Brandon?)

One of the things I love about Africa is the generosity. Black African cultures are so full of generosity, I'm frequently both blessed and convicted by it. People in Masi give freely to those around them. It's a cultural norm, and something everyone is blessed by. There's this one mama I'm friends with in Masi who sells pillows for a living. She cuts up foam into little pieces to stuff into fabric she sews by hand. She doesn't make very much money, and she supports several children. Whenever I visit her, though, she's always making me tea or pouring me some mango juice. She doesn't hold anything she has back from others. I've seen this generosity on a person level, but I didn't really notice it as an overarching trend until I started reading "African Friends and Money Matters" by David E. Maranz. It's a great book that I may post more about later. But one of the trends that it points out is that this generosity has protected Africans throughout history. Without any sort of social security system here in South Africa, poor individuals without resources themselves are cared for. Family members share their food and money with other members of the family and close friends. It's what enables so many people to survive without jobs for years in Masi. When I first heard the crazy unemployment statistics (as much as 70 percent), I wondered how people could still survive. But this is how. And it's amazing to see this generosity at work. Single breadwinners care for huge amounts of people selflessly and without complaining. I really admire this about Africans. I wish I were more selflessly generous, and I know God is using my African brothers and sisters to teach me more about this kingdom principle.

Just thought I'd post a picture Brandon took a few weeks ago of one of the discovery Bible studies he's helped start in Masi.

I thought I'd share with you about one of the young women I've been meeting with in Masi. Whitney and I met this 18-year-old single mom during the second week we were in Masi. We were looking for someone else, but we met her. When we told her what we were doing, she immediately said she wanted to do a Bible study. She had given her life to Jesus a while ago, but never continued going to church or being discipled in any way. We did a Bible study with her and it was awesome, the insights she got from the Holy Spirit were incredible. But then she lost her phone and we didn't have any way to connect with her again. We prayed that we would be able to reconnect with her, and we ran into her last Friday and set up a time for another Bible study. She said she was so thankful God sent us to her, because through the Bible study God showed her that she does have dreams for the future, dreams for her baby girl, and that God is going to help her. This Sunday, Whitney, Vovo and I went back to her for a second Bible study. During the opening prayer time, she broke down and started crying. She said so many bad things have happened to her in life. She said she had so many questions for God, and questioned why he let all this happen to her. It seemed like it was the perfect timing of God to bring us into her life at this point. She needed to hear that God loved her, and God sent us to her at just the right time to say, "God sees you, he loves you and he has good things for you." I love her so much and am excited to see how she grows! She is in the process of trying to get an official government ID. Without it, she can't go to college or get a job. She's graduated high school, but can't do anything else until she gets her ID. Please pray that when she goes to Johannesburg the first week of May she'd be able to get an ID! This was actually a really encouraging experience this week. I'd been getting discouraged that we weren't seeing massive results and that I wasn't accomplishing anything with my time. But then God reminded me that it's not my job to put a value on what I'm doing. It's only my job to love God and be obedient to him. Then he really encouraged me. It's silly that I was being discouraged, because lots of exciting stuff is going on.

Hello, everyone — I have exciting news to share! Brandon baptized two new believers this Easter Sunday. It was an incredible experience to watch him with the family he's been doing a Bible study with. They are a young couple from Zimbabwe, and they also had Brandon and another guy here baptize their little baby. I was waiting to share this exciting news with you until now because I have been trying for several days to upload video from Sunday. It's finally worked, so here are a few clips of the celebration this Sunday with All Nations, and then full video of the baptism in a pool at Africa House.

Easter Sunday from Brandon Jones on Vimeo.

I am so happy to share the news of this family's life with you, because you are a part of bringing this family into God's kingdom. Without your prayers and financial support for Brandon and I, he would not have met this family and shared the good news of Jesus with them. Now they are leading a Bible study in their home with their friends and neighbors, who are also catching the vision of God's incredible destiny for them. If you want to read more about this family from Brandon's perspective, you can look back at his March 14 blog post.

This post may only be interesting to writers, journalists and grammar snobs, but since all of the above apply to me, I think it'll be pretty intriguing! So I thought I'd let you in on one of the challenging things for me in my new country: the writing style. There are two aspects of this. First, there's the fact that not everyone here is a native English speaker. That leads to some pretty bad spelling and grammar mistakes in many written mediums. I have grace for this though. I try to remind myself that my written Spanish was far worse than this, and it helps. The second thing that's challenging about the writing though is the style. Professional English writers here just have a different way of doing things — and it's a way that grates on my nerves. It's probably the exact opposite of what I was taught in American journalism. When writing for a newspaper, you're taught to be as precise as possible. Don't use 10 words when two will do. Cut out the adjectives and adverbs and instead use powerful verbs that tell the story more clearly. I thought this was an international standard. Not so. Here's a sample of the writing in a book by a journalist. Steven Otter in "Khayelitsha:" "The smiles of passers-by, acknowledging us with a grin or a wave, ran contrary to the hardship written like graffiti all over my new surroundings, where the cheapest metals and the throwaway things of the wealthy had been used with great care to create the best living conditions possible." I had to force myself to finish Otter's book. Great content, but I did not like the writing style. I kept thinking, "Where was this guy's editor?" He could have said the same thing in far fewer words. He also could have varied his sentence structure. Most of his sentences are long and rambling like the one above. But that's just the style here. It's in books and newspapers, but it's also in the advertising and marketing industry. Here's part of what's written on a can of Heinz cream of tomato soup: "Our famous, much loved Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup is made to our own special recipe … packed with tomatoes to create a delicious soup that's bursting with flavor …" Do you see what I'm talking about? Lots of adjectives and flowery expressions. Not only famous, but also much loved! Not only delicious, but also bursting with flavor! Why can't they just use more powerful words that say more? And it's all over the place here. Everything's so wordy. Now I know some of you are thinking, "What's the big deal?" But others of you out there get it, don't you? Sometimes it's all I can do to keep from pulling out my red pen and editing the thing to pieces.